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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Minus Man, The
Tsg Pictures
MPAA RATING: R for language and a scene of drug use
Starring
Owen Wilson,
Mercedes Ruehl,
Sheryl Crow,
Dwight Yoakam,
Janeane Garofalo,
and
Bryan Cox III
Vann Siegert (Wilson) is a kind, unnoticeable drifter who rolls into a quaint coastal town looking to start over. (Shooting Gallery)
| GENRE(S): |
Mystery
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Hampton Fancher
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Hampton Fancher
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 11, 2000
Video: April 11, 2000
Theatrical: September 10, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
110 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
The sly and subtle Minus Man is a wicked little sidewinder of a black comedy.
90
Variety
Glen Lovell
The kind of muted, anything-but-obvious psychological thriller Hitchcock would have loved.
90
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
Eerie, quietly compelling... a fresh and mesmerizing experience...such an unsettling experience you find yourself still taking it all in well after the lights have gone up.
80
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
A potent thriller that grows in intensity as the audience realizes that the character it likes most is most likely a nut job.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Low-key, understated style. The suspense beats away underneath.
75
San Francisco Examiner
Wesley Morris
Fancher's placid, eerily subdued first directorial feature.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Excellent acting and a finely tuned screenplay spark this genuinely offbeat melodrama.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
With no climactic showdown and no comforting revelation of motive or reassuring psychoanalytic diagnosis, the nerve-rattling potential of this sly, paranoia-inducing story may sink in only later.
70
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
Disarming-misfit story, which combines elements of a road movie, romance, small-town idyll, and police procedural.
70
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
Less interesting for what it has to say about evil -- namely, that it's banal/unknowable/random/everywhere -- than for the microsurgical procedures it performs on genre conventions and expectations.
63
Mr. Showbiz
Michael Atkinson
It's a drab, familiar story with no oomph (and less humor than you'd think), and it's inconsistent.
63
Baltimore Sun
Ann Hornaday
Its mood of ennui and dread will haunt long after its title character's beaming grin has faded.
60
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
A film without attitude or mystery...an exquisitely executed, and exquisitely banal, treatise on the banality of evil.
60
Film.com
Peter Brunette
Fancher seems uninterested in developing real suspense, or incapable of it, at least until the end, when there's plenty of it, but artificially imposed.
60
Dallas Observer
Andy Klein
Doesn't show us much of anything we haven't seen better already.
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
The film ultimately has no contrast and we can't figure out whom to like or dislike.
50
USA Today
Mike Clark
There is no tension here. Actually, The Minus Man is minus a lot - intensity, a point of view, maybe even a point - and that equals an unsatisfying film.
50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The banality of faceless evil isn't actually all that compelling on the hoof; the film's more interesting as a curiosity than as a film.
50
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Takes such pains to avoid narrative and verbal cliches and anything that could remotely be construed as sentimental or romantic that it feels curiously flat.
50
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
There are absolutely no psychological insights into sick minds in The Minus Man, a poky, opaque drama with a good cast and not much going on upstairs.
50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Minimalism be damned; even a postmodern noir needs more than Minus Man gives us. So do the actors.
38
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
A slow, self-consciously low-key, very dull film that strains for eeriness with long silences and affectless performances.
30
Salon.com
Jeff Stark
If you're dragged to the theater to be someone's not-dumb date, pack a crossword and a light pen. It'll be the only puzzle worth solving.
30
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
The most lackadaisical thriller I've ever seen, overly infatuated with not only the inexplicability of random evil, but also its mundanity.
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
A half-baked disappointment...never flies, never comes close to meeting its own expectations.
10
TNT RoughCut
Christopher Brandon
Really a big fat zero. Hampton Fancher has done the unthinkable -- he's made a boring serial killer movie.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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